Enjoy yourself as much as you like, if only you keep from sin.
St. John Bosco

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Blogging the day

I haven't blogged for a while, it seems. Or seriously blogged anyway. Since we are in a transitional time right now getting ready for high tide the day after Labor Day, I thought I'd blog this day and incoroporate everything, eating, exercise, thoughts, activities, down time, etc.

Woke at 6 with Becky getting into bed with me. She'd had a bad dream. I couldn't go back to sleep so I got up about 6:30. Moved laundry, had cup of tea. Couldn't get any computer to work! So I wound up looking for the Teaching the Classics DVD that has gone missing. I am very frustrated with myself for having misplaced it. I self-sabatoge this way all the time. I know I put it someplace because I was planning to use it this week but I must have absent-mindedly misplaced it somewhere. Anyway I decluttered a bit. We are still unpacking and catching up from vacation.

7:30 I went up and got dressed to go on a walk. Rick was awake so I told him about the computers. he came down and started working on them. Managed to get them all up. Will woke up and came down and was helping with computers. I went for my walk, 30 minutes, said the rosary, met a neighbor walking her dog. Will put on a load of laundry.

Came home, had another cup of tea, checked e-mail and such. Will was just wandering around aimlessly. I told him to go take a shower but he put it off. Gotta work on basic hygiene with that guy. Becky woke up. Started breakfast; frozen french toast. Got Sean and Josh and Hannah up @ 8:30. Sean took shower.

8:55 Hannah and Will went to 9:15 mass.

Becky, Sean, Josh and I had french toast for breakfast.

I told the kids no screen until 1:00 p.m. They have been down in the basement playing on the keyboard, playing on a recorder or playing ping pong. Becky has been playing in her Under the Sea Scratch and Sketch book she got for her birthday. I just read to her again about Hermit Crabs. Sean just picked out the tune to Where is Love from Oliver on the recorder.

Today: focus on getting everyone unpacked and rooms tidied, laundry, haircuts, work on cleaning and organizing basement, start pot roast in crockpot for dinner. Read Sun Slower, Sun Faster at lunch time, make everybody read for an hour, watch more St. Thomas Aquinas lectures (started that last night).

update 10:54 a.m. Rick still hasn't left for work. He's setting up his new laptop.

Sean worked on learning Where is Love on the recorder. Becky got out Will's weight set and was lifting weights! Josh retired to his room and starting re-reading our Mrs. Piggle Wiggle collection (he's read it several times before; an old favorite). I did laundry and puttered around. Sean started teaching Becky how to play Hot Cross Buns on the recorder.

Hannah and Will came home from Mass and Starbucks. Hannah is watching swing dancing on utube and now Sean and Becky are planning to do a dance for the St. Nick's Day show our homeschool group has every year. They look so sweet dancing together. They are really good for an 8 and 6 year old. Will is finally taking a shower then we are all going to the mall to get haircuts. All three boys look very shaggy. Need to pick up bedding for gerbil cages. The cages need changing.

11:46 I am waiting for the water to boil for Ramen noodles. We decided to eat lunch and then go get haircuts. Sean already had his tuna. I'm making noodles and then kids can choose between pb&j or turkey sandwiches. Hannah left again already. She's off to NVCC's bookstore to get her Spanish I books, her class starts Thursday (I thought it started Tuesday). Good news, she knows another homeschooler who's going to be in the class. She was nervous about going to a college class and not knowing anybody. I cleaned up a bit in the basement. Yesterday we cleaned up the dress up closet by the stage. Today I am going through the shelves and bins down there. Josh has been most helpful today. He announced he was in a good mood!

2:43 We ate lunch and then spent a long time looking for Sean's shoes. I found them in the basement toybox. I realized that he hadn't worn them since Sunday and then cleaners had been here yesterday. There is one cleaner that just picks up everything and throws it somewhere. Why anyone would think that shoes belong in a toybox is beyond me. But it's really our fault, we need to tidy up before they come. Anyway, we went to get haircuts which took a while. Becky bought Hannah a gumball to surprise her with. After haircuts the boys all went next door to EBGames to window shop; play demo games. Will bought some games on sale. Becky and I walked over to the pet store to get bedding. They had the cutest puppies in the windows mini dachsunds and Shepherd/border collie mixes. Very cute. I couldn't pass by the Starbucks without getting a tall skim latte. Now we are home and everybody is settling down to play video games or watch tv. Everyone's chilling for the next couple of hours. Hannah got her Spanish books. They didn't look too intimidating to her so that's making her feel a little better about the class.

4:55 update on quiet time: Sean and Becky watched two episodes of Hannah Montana and two episodes of Foster's home for Imaginary Friends. They also sorted through Becky's button collection. Becky has this old collection of buttons I found in my grandmother's sewing box years ago. Somehow it got stashed in our linen closet and during our sweep earlier this summer I found it and gave it to her. Josh was watching Toonami cartoons on the study computer. Hannah was getting her school stuff ready for Spanish. She came by looking for a composition book. She said she was going to read the first chapter in her Spanish. Now she's writing up her narration of the 3rd date in Ten Dates Every Catholic Should Know. During this time I made up a schedule for William for the coming year and posted it on the kitchen cabinet door. Then I read some more of my book 1215; the Year of the Magna Carta. Then I took a shower. Becky during this time was also trying to create her own comic book. She was having trouble with her word bubbles so when I came out she dictated a joke to me to write in the word balloon. Also all day long Becky has been doing cartwheels and flips and practicing the splits. She is completely enchanted by gymnastics and can't stop herself from doing flips and such. One night she did 100 cartwheels in about 8 minutes. She and Sean just went upstairs presumably to clean up the floor of Sean's room so they can swing dance, however, I hear Sean playing Where is Love on the recorder again. Will during this time more or less just sat around waiting to get use of the downstairs tv so he could play Halo which he is playing now.

6:09 I sent Josh, Sean and Becky off to change the gerbil cages. Somehow they got into a fight and Josh wound up evicting them from the room. A few minutes later he came out announcing that one of the gerbils got loose. Becky and I tried to help but I'm trying to cook dinner at the same time and Becky isn't much help for this. Hannah wrote a very rough draft (very rough) of her narration. I think she spent more time on I M than actually working. Sigh. If she wants to unschool that's one thing but if she wants to be more traditional (which is what she says) she needs to do the work. Now she's gone for a 20 minute walk. It has been raining off and on all day but she has always liked walking in the rain. Will is still playing his game. I am going to give him until 6:30. Now Josh and Sean are hunting for the gerbil. They are both acting frustrated. I think it's hunger, they wanted to snack but I told them it was too close to dinner time. Becky is playing with my camera.

7:18. Had dinner. Pot roast, mashed potates and salad. Becky made the salad and was very proud of herself. Hannah is moody, complaining she's hungry. She didn't like the dinner. She toasted some English muffins and now we are having decaf tea. She's also complaining about how strange Will is to her friends. Will is stalking the gerbil. I said if the kids found the gerbil I'd clean the kitchen instead of making them. But I don't think anybody but Will took me seriously.

9:17 Cleaned kitchen, mostly. Didn't sweep. Becky got on my laptop and into microsoft word. She decided to type out her recipe for salad. She typed (with help from me and Hannah) Becky's recipe salad lettuce tomatoes spring onion. I went upstairs in search of the gerbil. Josh was reading Mrs. Piggle Wiggle again. Hannah came by and together we found and finally caught the little lost gerbil. Josh never did change the bedding in the cages. Argghh! The room is getting that dreadful smell. And the room is a mess because we were moving toyboxes and furniture all over trying to find the gerbil. Sean during this time got onto the Cartoon networks game site where you can compose jazz music. He loves to do this. He composed a piece he called Cool3 (he already has pieces saved entitled Cool1 and Cool2). Becky decided to try her hand at composing and created Becky's Awesome song1 and 2. I don't know exactly where Will was or what he was doing during this time.

Rick came home and we said prayers. I put Becky to bed. Read her a couple of stories out of a collection of Barbie stories she somehow acquired. Real twaddle but of course she adores it. Then she wanted to listen to Winnie the Pooh. She claimed she was hungry so I brought her some grapes to munch while she listened.

Rick read some Harry Potter to Sean. Then I put Sean to bed. He said he was hungry so I made him some pb crackers. He really wants to start vision therapy so he can read better. He envies Josh who reads so much at night. Josh said he wanted to read a book set in the Roman time. I gave him a Rosemary Sutcliffe novel. It might be above his level but he seemed interested. But then he wound up going down to play a video game. He didn't get a turn this afternoon so I had told him earlier in the day he could play after Sean went to bed.

Hannah was supposed to be reading more Ten Dates but she started fooling around with the CN music writing game saying she was going to compose her own jazz piece.

Rick munched on some cold dinner, poor guy.

Right now I am going to watch Ralph McIniery (or however you spell his name) lecture on Thomas Aquinas with Hannah and Will. Then I'll probably do some more laundry, put on the dishwasher and go to bed to read my book 1215. I snuck in some reading whenever I went to the bathroom! It is fascinating stuff!

10th Grade - Catholic Life Community, A Beka Biology, Saxon Algebra II and Jacobs Geometry, New First Steps in Latin/Lingua Latina, The History of the Church, St. Augustine's Confessions, Augustine Came to Kent, William the Conqueror by Belloc, Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot, St. Francis of Assisi by Chesterton, The Quiet Light by de Wohl, Dante's Inferno, Joan of Arc by Mark Twain, Lepanto by Chesterton, Hamlet by Shakespeare

A Brief Introduction

My husband, Rick and I have been married for almost 22 years. We are Catholic (well, Rick is Jewish!) and love living the homeschooling lifestyle. The kids have all been diagnosed with LDs when it comes to reading and writing. These turned out to simply mean we bloom a little later than other kids do in these subjects. No big deal. But I am a big fan of vision therapy as it has helped my kids so much!

We've been pretty relaxed these past few years, most relaxed in the youngest years and gradually getting more formal as we enter high school and design our own college prep plans. This year we are starting out more formal for 6th grade. My son has expressed a desire to go to school next year in 7th grade. So to help prepare him for that he wanted to to enroll in Kolbe's homeschool program to get used to taking tests, writing more and keeping a tighter schedule. The 4th grader is following suit, just because they are used to doing much the same thing each day.

My 15 yo wants to go to college and is interested in the fields of economics, business and finance, computers and game design.

I have graduated two children from homeschool already! My oldest daughter, 19, is starting her second year at the University of Dallas, majoring in Politics. My oldest son, 18, plans to study and take CLEP tests using CollegePlus, find a parttime job, and practice and prepare for his winter audition for a music conservatory. He aspires to be a composer and performer.

So we are down to homeschooling three kids this year, 2010-2011 - a 10th grader, a 6th grader and a 3rd/4th grader. This will be our 14th year of homeschooling!